pressed flowers & whistling kettles
by seh28
Summary: post finale. wes is still reeling and annalise contemplates the ramifications of specific actions.


**A/N: This is completely rough, unedited and the tenses are off. But I had to write them because the utter lack of fic for this ship is dismaying. **

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Sometimes she checked on him; sometimes she left him alone.

Always a quick call between meetings or classes, curt inquiries regarding if he'd eaten or stepped outside to let the sun sweep against his somnolent features. She knew he wasn't sleeping so she never asked that. He'd answer the phone intermittently. Other times he'd let it go to voicemail, unmoved from the massive groove his indolent body had so easily made in his mattress. A stray thread from the corner of his rumpled bed sheet acting as futile entertainment while his long fingers rolled it as his mind would cycle its endless tally. Whenever his gaze landed on the marks on the wall, he'd force himself to look away.

He hadn't been to class in two weeks and she didn't mention it. When one of the other Keating Five made a remark about his absence, she'd counter with some rushed bark about him being under the weather, as if that's really an excuse in their line of work. She couldn't remember the last time she'd actually taken a sick day prior to the recent catastrophic unfolding's- which after so long, had her holed up in her room, eliciting an uncharacteristic plea to her mother. Normally, she was a proponent of the "chug water and whatever medicine alleviated the ailment" method, even temporarily. You did what you had to for whatever information was needed for the next step; the necessary information to insure a win.

But this wasn't normally.

It didn't escape her that he hadn't been answering lately, which made her uneasy. He could wallow, become more rigid and anguished, but hearing his voice, no matter how disheveled and aimless he sounded, tempered her incessant worry. She had unraveled quite rapidly very recently so she knew the signs.

So the last thing she expected was him perched gingerly on the side of a chair in her main room when she came home from court one day. His presence extracted a quick exhale from her as she paused briefly, before allowing herself to quickly ingest the sight of him. The first thing she thinks of is that she didn't notice his bike outside. She also relies heavily on the inclination that no one else is there.

"Am I missing much?" Wes phrased these words like most standard preamble. Low, vacant, feigning affability.

Annalise regarded him quietly. She sees the way fatigue is shading in his features- the hunched over way he's sitting, forgoing his stature. She notes the way he's not even looking at her, his line of sight cast off towards a bookshelf that once housed a particular item, in it's place giant bound law books.

"You'll get caught up," Annalise supposed matter-of-factly, folding her arms over her body as she further dissected his presence.

"What if I did it?" Wes almost gasps lightly. His eyes meeting hers with brevity before he shifts his focus elsewhere.

That was the new line that ran cyclically in his mind. He didn't always trust himself and he realized that shift had taken place awhile ago. Maybe when the nightmares started, perhaps even before that.

"You didn't let Rebecca go," Annalise stated evenly, her gaze turned perplexing for a millisecond before easing back into softness.

"Maybe I did," Wes muttered to himself more than her. "What if I let her go? What if I hurt her?"

"Hurt?" Annalise posed, an inquiry that made her eyebrows raise in supposition.

"She said some really heinous things that night," Wes breathed. "What if I blacked out and- and... I mean I'm capable of it, aren't I?"

The question was rhetorical and felt like cement in his mouth. Hardened molten lava.

The first time had been a fluke, it had been to protect someone else. The girl he was currently speaking of, coincidentally. But could he have done it again? Was he pathological? Was he a monster?

"Have you blacked out before?" Annalise questioned staunchly, her concern rising at the back of her neck, inching up to her ears.

"I think I have since," Wes responded, his gaze pinned her where she stood. He was curious how she would decipher this revelation. Would she transition into treating him like something other than what he was? Or rather, exactly what he was. Like someone guilty? Like a client. "I don't know. My mind is addled. I can't sleep, I can barely concentrate. I lose track of time. I'm all over the place."

Annalise stayed silent, hearing the way the grandfather clock ticked in the hall. It's sound like the measured steps she was about to take. It concerned her that he seemed convinced Rebecca was not just released but also hurt. How did he derive that type of conclusion? No matter how he had reached that point, she couldn't confirm it. Not now, at least. Telling a bold faced lie to ease him seemed like a much better option. Annalise took slow paces towards his seated frame.

"She ran," Annalise explained carefully. "Why wouldn't she run? We were forcing her to stay against her will."

"She didn't run," Wes admonished, his voice bellowed a bit with inflection. His blinked against his own remark as Annalise's expression seemed to absorb the elevated volume. "Something tells me she didn't get that far."

Annalise couldn't refute that, but she also couldn't confirm it. But the way he had suddenly latched onto her gaze made her believe that he'd already played every scenario in his mind, and the one where she was just safe somewhere hiding out, lost probability every time it trickled into his brain. But he couldn't know, she couldn't tell him, for his own protection based on the way he was currently talking.

Wes's wistful eyes held hers with deliberate frankness, unbending. They both knew she wouldn't confirm or deny his claim. There was too much uncertainty involved, too many questions. Too many people.

Anyone is capable of anything, after all.

"You have to start sleeping," Annalise murmured under a short exhale, the tips of her fingers reaching out to smooth down his collar and lightly twist the button there, her thumb brushing against his collarbone. His lips parted almost immediately and his eyebrows knitted as if he needed to express a preponderance of vital things in that moment, but didn't have the capacity to.

"I wish," Wes whispered, trying to ignore the warmth left on his skin by her fingers. He was still at a loss for how quickly their interactions could dissolve into something so imminently consuming. Like a light switch or a sudden grand idea. Heady and instant.

The first time it had happened, he felt for sure it was strictly a manipulative tactic, and maybe it had been... but every time since, he had become more and more influenced by it's potential organic impetus. As if maybe it existed on its own accord separate from him keeping secrets or her shelving information. This was a perpetual problem for him because he couldn't categorize her properly. He was certain he'd never been attached to such a powerful, brilliant and damning woman. That fact both fueled and terrified him.

They had been through so much all in a matter of weeks. What she had since sacrificed for him, and the others, only compounded his muddled feelings towards her. He'd never encountered a more elusive and debilitating entity.

He was indebted, he was thankful, he was fascinated.

"Do you ever blame me?" Wes questioned almost too breezily, under his breath. His head dropped languidly as the side of his nose made contact with the inside of her wrist. She smelled so familiar. How does the scent of someone's skin become so exact? He couldn't fathom a reason outside of science. "Tell the truth."

"I believe it happened exactly the way you said it did," Annalise responded, her body swaying just barely as she watched the way his facial expressions flickered when his mind was trying to process a dozen things at once. "He wasn't a good man."

"Did he ever hurt you?" Wes probed gently, his eyes searching hers for the truth that might involuntarily display itself before her mouth utters the answer.

Something about the question caused Annalise to pause, surmise the situation and square her shoulders. She was never a victim. She may have been wronged but she wasn't without fight and grit and bone bending tenacity.

"I gave as good as I got," Annalise countered, her voice laced with conviction as her chin jutted out just barely.

The comparison bothered Wes. That she would answer his question with an equivocation that implied she was somehow on par with Sam in terms of ghastly behavior. Wes knew her to be capable of many things but she had a certain truth that emanated from her core that he couldn't ignore. Beyond the manipulation, quick wit, harsh tongue and no-nonsense attitude- something authentic lived.

And she was loyal, wasn't she? He was sitting there as living proof. It did not escape him that the man who's life he had snuffed out that night was the husband of his law professor whom he had an obscure connection with. Neither was the fact that she'd essentially framed her boyfriend in lieu of turning him in. So she was unmistakably in his corner, of that he was sure. No matter how much he may have questioned that fact in the past.

"I hope it's worth it," Wes surmised, his gaze sweeping over her exposed collarbones. He never missed the way she wore the hell out of a dress. The front of his pants tightened at the observation. "For you, I mean."

Annalise swallowed thickly as she contemplated his words, her fingers grasping more firmly on the edge of his collar. Wes' fingertips reached out to gingerly clasp around her wrist as he unfolded his limbs to stand. Annalise's gazed flicked upwards as his height displayed itself. Something about his height and his eyes and his hand, or maybe a combination of all three, registered deep in her gut and made her shift onto the back of her heels.

"I'm doing what I know how to do," Annalise muttered, halfway wondering if this moment was the precursor to the other side of whatever unspeakable thing went on between the two of them. "You all can't fend for yourselves in this arena."

Wes' tired eyes blinked as his fingers fastened more securely against her pulse point. His gaze bereft of its usual curious and hopeful element. His sometimes intuitively cunning was gone. He swayed towards her briefly as Annalise suddenly made up her mind.

"Let me make you some tea," Annalise suggested, slowly pulling her hand away from his hold as she took a step back. Choosing to upend the moment in it's crux.

As much as that house seemed impossibly empty when no one else was there and as much as she'd had thoughts about acquainting herself with his body and virile disposition, neither one of them could afford the remnants of whatever the aftermath of that would look like.

There was already too much going on; an inordinate amount at play.

Pressure, hot water, steam.


End file.
